CHLOE POPOVE

Founder and owner MY MODERN CLOSET AGE: 28

LIFE STORY: As an only child whose parents were active in the Chilliwack community (her father, now a city councillor, was president of the local business improvement association), Chloe Popove was taken to events before she turned two. “By five they had me helping and sticking glitter on things,” she recalls. In elementary school, Popove bought bulk candy at H.Y. Louie and sold it to neighbourhood kids from the family garage. Then, noticing the price of curly willow branches in plant stores, she took discarded prunings from her dad's garden and sold them house-to-house, earning enough to buy a new bike.

When Popove was 19, she moved to Vancouver and worked at Lululemon Athletica Inc. after earning a diploma in public relations from Kwantlen Polytechnic University. That job led her to launch an online clothing consignment store, My Modern Closet, in 2015, to raise awareness of the harmful effects of fast fashion and to reduce waste by making it simple, affordable and stylish to choose consigned clothing over buying new. She and her staff pick up consigned items, provide payout within 24 hours and ship garments purchased from the 550 displayed online to anywhere in North America.

THE BOTTOM LINE: My Modern Closet has grown from a onewoman enterprise in a 500-squarefoot apartment to a 900-square-foot Gastown studio with five part-time employees and five freelance writers. Popove plans to expand to 12 full-time staff by boosting online revenue to more than $500,000 a year. —F.S.